NATO considers threats after Russian incursion

Poland’s prime minister pledged Thursday to push ahead with a “great modernization program” for his country’s military and Finland’s president warned of further unease over security in Europe, a day after Russian drones struck on Polish soil and alarmed NATO leaders about what the Kremlin's future territorial ambitions might be.

- CLAUDIA CIOBANU

WOJTEK RADWANSKI AFP/Getty Images GEN. WIESLAW KUKULA and Gen. Maciej Klisz speak before a Polish National Security Council meeting.

The incursion Wednesday, which came during unrelenting Russian strikes on neighboring Ukraine, deepened longstanding fears that the three-year war between Poland's neighbors could precipitate a wider conflict. U.S.-led efforts to steer Moscow and Kyiv toward a peace settlement have so far failed to get traction.

European officials described the incursion as a deliberate provocation, forcing the NATO alliance to confront a potential threat in its airspace for the first time and compelling it to take stock of its military response.

Some call incursion a deliberate strike

NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said Thursday that the alliance wasn’t certain about the number of drones that entered Polish territory, or whether they were fired intentionally.

“But we will learn lessons. We will learn of things that we need to enhance our posture, to handle these limited incursions,” Grynkewich said in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.

The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania published a joint statement calling the incursion “a deliberate and coordinated strike constituting an unprecedented provocation and escalation of tension.”